Microsoft Bing adds Quora answers to its social sidebar

Microsoft is adding content from top contributors on the Quora question-and-answer site to the “social sidebar” on its Bing search results pages, trying to boost the usefulness of the feature.

The results show up under the “People Who Know” section of the sidebar. For example, a search for “Harry Potter” on Bing now brings up a link to answers provided by a Quora contributor to a variety of questions about the franchise.

Launched earlier this year, the Bing social sidebar is meant to supplement traditional search results. One feature, for example, leverages Microsoft’s relationship with Facebook to highlight content from users’ friends related to the subject of any given search.

Bing also integrates results from other third-party services, including Foursquare, into the sidebar.

Microsoft has been making progress in its effort to boost its market share in recent months, but most of its gains have been coming at the expense of its partner, Yahoo. Google held steady at 66.8 percent of the U.S. market in July, while Microsoft increased just a bit to 15.7 and Yahoo was at 13 percent, according to comScore Networks.